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King Coal: A Novel, a novel by Upton Sinclair |
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Book 2. The Serfs Of King Coal - Section 21 To Section 25 |
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_ SECTION 21.
"Well, well!" said Hal, condescendingly. "That's even nicer than beefsteak and mashed potatoes!" He sat and watched, not offering to help, while the other made room for the tray on the table in front of him. Then the man stalked out, and Hal began to eat. Before he had finished, the camp-marshal returned. He seated himself in his revolving chair, and appeared to be meditative. Between bites, Hal would look up and smile at him. "Cotton," said he, "you know there is no more certain test of breeding than table-manners. You will observe that I have not tucked my napkin in my neck, as Alec Stone would have done." "I'm getting you," replied the marshal. Hal set his knife and fork side by side on his plate. "Your man has overlooked the finger-bowl," he remarked. "However, don't bother. You might ring for him now, and let him take the tray." The camp-marshal used his voice for a bell, and the jailer came. "Unfortunately," said Hal, "when your people were searching me, night before last, they dropped my purse, so I have no tip for the waiter." The "waiter" glared at Hal as if he would like to bite him; but the camp-marshal grinned. "Clear out, Gus, and shut the door," said he. Then Hal stretched his legs and made himself comfortable again. "I must say I like being your guest better than being your prisoner!" There was a pause. "I've been talking it over with Mr. Cartwright," began the marshal. "I've got no way of telling how much of this is bluff that you've been giving me, but it's evident enough that you're no miner. You may be some newfangled kind of agitator, but I'm damned if I ever saw an agitator that had tea-party manners. I suppose you've been brought up to money; but if that's so, why you want to do this kind of thing is more than I can imagine." "Tell me, Cotton," said Hal, "did you never hear of _ennui_?" "Yes," replied the other, "but aren't you rather young to be troubled with that complaint?" "Suppose I've seen others suffering from it, and wanted to try a different way of living from theirs?" "If you're what you say, you ought to be still in college." "I go back for my senior year this fall." "What college?" "You doubt me still, I see!" said Hal, and smiled. Then, unexpectedly, with a spirit which only moonlit campuses and privilege could beget, he chanted: "Old King Coal was a merry old soul, "What college is that?" asked the marshal. And Hal sang again: "Oh, Liza-Ann, come out with me,
"A little group--enough to leaven the lump." "And this is your idea of a vacation?" "No, it isn't a vacation; it's a summer-course in practical sociology." "Oh, I see!" said the marshal; and he smiled in spite of himself. "All last year we let the professors of political economy hand out their theories to us. But somehow the theories didn't seem to correspond with the facts. I said to myself, 'I've got to check them up.' You know the phrases, perhaps--individualism, _laissez faire_, freedom of contract, the right of every man to work for whom he pleases. And here you see how the theories work out--a camp-marshal with a cruel smile on his face and a gun on his hip, breaking the laws faster than a governor can sign them." The camp-marshal decided suddenly that he had had enough of this "tea-party." He rose to his feet to cut matters short. "If you don't mind, young man," said he, "we'll get down to business!"
SECTION 22. He took a turn about the room, then he came and stopped in front of Hal. He stood with his hands thrust into his pockets, with a certain jaunty grace that was out of keeping with his occupation. He was a handsome devil, Hal thought--in spite of his dangerous mouth, and the marks of dissipation on him. "Young man," he began, with another effort at geniality. "I don't know who you are, but you're wide awake; you've got your nerve with you, and I admire you. So I'm willing to call the thing off, and let you go back and finish that course at college." Hal had been studying the other's careful smile. "Cotton," he said, at last, "let me get the proposition clear. I don't have to say I took that money?" "No, we'll let you off from that." "And you won't send me to the pen?" "No. I never meant to do that, of course. I was only trying to bluff you. All I ask is that you clear out, and give our people a chance to forget." "But what's there in that for me, Cotton? If I had wanted to run away, I could have done it any time during the last eight or ten weeks." "Yes, of course, but now it's different. Now it's a matter of my consideration." "Cut out the consideration!" exclaimed Hal. "You want to get rid of me, and you'd like to do it without trouble. But you can't--so forget it." The other was staring, puzzled. "You mean you expect to stay here?" "I mean just that." "Young man, I've had enough of this! I've got no more time to play. I don't care who you are, I don't care about your threats. I'm the marshal of this camp, and I have the job of keeping order in it. I say you're going to get out!" "But, Cotton," said Hal, "this is an incorporated town! I have a right to walk on the streets--exactly as much right as you." "I'm not going to waste time arguing. I'm going to put you into an automobile and take you down to Pedro!" "And suppose I go to the District Attorney and demand that he prosecute you?" "He'll laugh at you." "And suppose I go to the Governor of the state?" "He'll laugh still louder." "All right, Cotton; maybe you know what you're doing; but I wonder--I wonder just how sure you feel. Has it never occurred to you that your superiors might not care to have you take these high-handed steps?" "My superiors? Who do you mean?" "There's one man in the state you must respect--even though you despise the District Attorney and the Governor. That is Peter Harrigan." "Peter Harrigan?" echoed the other; and then he burst into a laugh. "Well, you _are_ a merry lad!" Hal continued to study him, unmoved. "I wonder if you're sure! He'll stand for everything you've done." "He will!" said the other. "For the way you treat the workers? He knows you are giving short weights." "Oh hell!" said the other. "Where do you suppose he got the money for your college?" There was a pause; at last the marshal asked, defiantly, "Have you got what you want?" "Yes," replied Hal. "Of course, I thought it all along, but it's hard to convince other people. Old Peter's not like most of these Western wolves, you know; he's a pious high-church man." The marshal smiled grimly. "So long as there are sheep," said he, there'll be wolves in sheep's clothing." "I see," said Hal. "And you leave them to feed on the lambs!" "If any lamb is silly enough to be fooled by that old worn-out skin," remarked the marshal, "it deserves to be eaten." Hal was studying the cynical face in front of him. "Cotton," he said, "the shepherds are asleep; but the watch-dogs are barking. Haven't you heard them?" "I hadn't noticed." "They are barking, barking! They are going to wake the shepherds! They are going to save the sheep!" "Religion don't interest me," said the other, looking bored; "your kind any more than Old Peter's." And suddenly Hal rose to his feet. "Cotton," said he, "my place is with the flock! I'm going back to my job at the tipple!" And he started towards the door.
Jeff Cotton sprang forward. "Stop!" he cried. But Hal did not stop. "See here, young man!" cried the marshal. "Don't carry this joke too far!" And he sprang to the door, just ahead of his prisoner. His hand moved toward his hip. "Draw your gun, Cotton," said Hal; and, as the marshal obeyed, "Now I will stop. If I obey you in future, it will be at the point of your revolver." The marshal's mouth was dangerous-looking. "You may find that in this country there's not so much between the drawing of a gun and the firing of it!" "I've explained my attitude," replied Hal. "What are your orders?" "Come back and sit in this chair." So Hal sat, and the marshal went to his desk, and took up the telephone. "Number seven," he said, and waited a moment. "That you, Tom? Bring the car right away." He hung up the receiver, and there followed a silence; finally Hal inquired, "I'm going to Pedro?" There was no reply. "I see I've got on your nerves," said Hal. "But I don't suppose it's occurred to you that you deprived me of my money last night. Also, I've an account with the company, some money coming to me for my work? What about that?" The marshal took up the receiver and gave another number. "Hello, Simpson. This is Cotton. Will you figure out the time of Joe Smith, buddy in Number Two, and send over the cash. Get his account at the store; and be quick, we're waiting for it. He's going out in a hurry." Again he hung up the receiver. "Tell me," said Hal, "did you take that trouble for Mike Sikoria?" There was silence. "Let me suggest that when you get my time, you give me part of it in scrip. I want it for a souvenir." Still there was silence. "You know," persisted the prisoner, tormentingly, "there's a law against paying wages in scrip." The marshal was goaded to speech. "We don't pay in scrip." "But you do, man! You know you do!" "We give it when they ask their money ahead." "The law requires you to pay them twice a month, and you don't do it. You pay them once a month, and meantime, if they need money, you give them this imitation money!" "Well, if it satisfies them, where's your kick?" "If it doesn't satisfy them, you put them on the train and ship them out?" The marshal sat in silence, tapping impatiently with his fingers on the desk. "Cotton," Hal began, again, "I'm out for education, and there's something I'd like you to explain to me--a problem in human psychology. When a man puts through a deal like this, what does he tell himself about it?" "Young man," said the marshal, "if you'll pardon me, you are getting to be a bore." "Oh, but we've got an automobile ride before us! Surely we can't sit in silence all the way!" After a moment he added, in a coaxing tone, "I really want to learn, you know. You might be able to win me over." "No!" said Cotton, promptly. "I'll not go in for anything like that!" "But why not?" "Because, I'm no match for you in long-windedness. I've heard you agitators before, you're all alike: you think the world is run by talk--but it isn't." Hal had come to realise that he was not getting anywhere in his duel with the camp-marshal. He had made every effort to get somewhere; he had argued, threatened, bluffed, he had even sung songs for the marshal! But the marshal was going to ship him out, that was all there was to it. Hal had gone on with the quarrel, simply because he had to wait for the automobile, and because he had endured indignities and had to vent his anger and disappointment. But now he stopped quarrelling suddenly. His attention was caught by the marshal's words, "You think the world is run by talk!" Those were the words Hal's brother always used! And also, the marshal had said, "You agitators!" For years it had been one of the taunts Hal had heard from his brother, "You will turn into one of these agitators!" Hal had answered, with boyish obstinacy, "I don't care if I do!" And now, here the marshal was calling him an agitator, seriously, without an apology, without the license of blood relationship. He repeated the words, "That's what gets me about you agitators--you come in here trying to stir these people up--" So that was the way Hal seemed to the "G. F. C."! He had come here intending to be a spectator, to stand on the deck of the steamer and look down into the ocean of social misery. He had considered every step so carefully before he took it! He had merely tried to be a check-weighman, nothing more! He had told Tom Olson he would not go in for unionism; he had had a distrust of union organisers, of agitators of all sorts--blind, irresponsible persons who went about stirring up dangerous passions. He had come to admire Tom Olson--but that had only partly removed his prejudices; Olson was only one agitator, not the whole lot of them! But all his consideration for the company had counted for nothing; likewise all his efforts to convince the marshal that he was a leisure-class person. In spite of all Hal's "tea-party manners," the marshal had said, "You agitators!" What was he judging by, Hal wondered. Had he, Hal Warner, come to look like one of these blind, irresponsible persons? It was time that he took stock of himself! Had two months of "dirty work" in the bowels of the earth changed him so? The idea was bound to be disconcerting to one who had been a favourite of the ladies! Did he talk like it?--he who had been "kissing the Blarney-stone!" The marshal had said he was "long-winded!" Well, to be sure, he had talked a lot; but what could the man expect--having shut him up in jail for two nights and a day, with only his grievances to brood over! Was that the way real agitators were made--being shut up with grievances to brood over? Hal recalled his broodings in the jail. He had been embittered; he had not cared whether North Valley was dominated by labour unions. But that had all been a mood, the same as his answer to his brother; that was jail psychology, a part of his summer course in practical sociology. He had put it aside; but apparently it had made a deeper impression upon him than he had realised. It had changed his physical aspect! It had made him look and talk like an agitator! It had made him "irresponsible," "blind!" Yes, that was it! All this dirt, ignorance, disease, this knavery and oppression, this maiming of men in body and soul in the coal-camps of America--all this did not exist--it was the hallucination of an "irresponsible" brain! There was the evidence of Hal's brother and the camp-marshal to prove it; there was the evidence of the whole world to prove it! The camp-marshal and his brother and the whole world could not be "blind!" And if you talked to them about these conditions, they shrugged their shoulders, they called you a "dreamer," a "crank," they said you were "off your trolley"; or else they became angry and bitter, they called you names; they said, "You agitators!"
The camp-marshal of North Valley had been "agitated" to such an extent that he could not stay in his chair. All the harassments of his troubled career had come pouring into his mind. He had begun pacing the floor, and was talking away, regardless of whether Hal listened or not. "A campful of lousy wops! They can't understand any civilised language, they've only one idea in the world--to shirk every lick of work they can, to fill up their cars with slate and rock and blame it on some other fellow, and go off to fill themselves with booze. They won't work fair, they won't fight fair--they fight with a knife in the back! And you agitators with your sympathy for them--why the hell do they come to this country, unless they like it better than their own?" Hal had heard this question before; but they had to wait for the automobile--and being sure that he was an agitator now, he would make all the trouble he could! "The reason is obvious enough," he said. "Isn't it true that the 'G. F. C.' employs agents abroad to tell them of the wonderful pay they get in America?" "Well, they get it, don't they? Three times what they ever got at home!" "Yes, but it doesn't do them any good. There's another fact which the 'G. F. C.' doesn't mention--that the cost of living is even higher than the wages. Then, too, they're led to think of America as a land of liberty; they come, hoping for a better chance for themselves and their children; but they find a camp-marshal who's off in his geography--who thinks the Rocky Mountains are somewhere in Russia!" "I know that line of talk!" exclaimed the other. "I learned to wave the starry flag when I was a kid. But I tell you, you've got to get coal mined, and it isn't the same thing as running a Fourth of July celebration. Some church people make a law they shan't work on Sunday--and what comes of that? They have thirty-six hours to get soused in, and so they can't work on Monday!" "Surely there's a remedy, Cotton! Suppose the company refused to rent buildings to saloon-keepers?" "Good God! You think we haven't tried it? They go down to Pedro for the stuff, and bring back all they can carry--inside them and out. And if we stop that--then our hands move to some other camps, where they can spend their money as they please. No, young man, when you have such cattle, you have to drive them! And it takes a strong hand to do it--a man like Peter Harrigan. If there's to be any coal, if industry's to go on, if there's to be any progress--" "We have that in our song!" laughed Hal, breaking into the camp-marshal's discourse-- "He keeps them a-roll, that merry old soul--
"I begin to understand," said Hal. "You object to the politicians who pass the laws, you doubt their motives--and so you refuse to obey. But why didn't you tell me sooner you were an anarchist?" "Anarchist?" cried the marshal. "_Me_ an anarchist?" "That's what an anarchist is, isn't it?" "Good God! If that isn't the limit! You come here, stirring up the men--a union agitator, or whatever you are--and you know that the first idea of these people, when they do break loose, is to put dynamite in the shafts and set fire to the buildings!" "Do they do that?" There was surprise in Hal's tone. "Haven't you read what they did in the last big strike? That dough-faced old preacher, John Edstrom, could tell you. He was one of the bunch." "No," said Hal, "you're mistaken. Edstrom has a different philosophy. But others did, I've no doubt. And since I've been here, I can understand their point of view entirely. When they set fire to the buildings, it was because they thought you and Alec Stone might be inside." The marshal did not smile. "They want to destroy the properties," continued Hal, "because that's the only way they can think of to punish the tyranny and greed of the owners. But, Cotton, suppose some one were to put a new idea into their heads; suppose some one were to say to them, 'Don't destroy the properties--_take them!_'" The other stared. "Take them! So that's your idea of morality!" "It would be more moral than the method by which Peter got them in the beginning." "What method is that?" demanded the marshal, with some appearance of indignation. "He paid the market-price for them, didn't he?" "He paid the market-price for politicians. Up in Western City I happen to know a lady who was a school-commissioner when he was buying school-lands from the state--lands that were known to contain coal. He was paying three dollars an acre, and everybody knew they were worth three thousand." "Well," said Cotton, "if you don't buy the politicians, you wake up some fine morning and find that somebody else has bought them. If you have property, you have to protect it." "Cotton," said Hal, "you sell Old Peter your time--but surely you might keep part of your brains! Enough to look at your monthly pay-check and realise that you too are a wage-slave, not much better than the miners you despise." The other smiled. "My check might be bigger, I admit; but I've figured over it, and I think I have an easier time than you agitators. I'm top-dog, and I expect to stay on top." "Well, Cotton, on that view of life, I don't wonder you get drunk now and then. A dog-fight, with no faith or humanity anywhere! Don't think I'm sneering at you--I'm talking out of my heart to you. I'm not so young, nor such a fool, that I haven't had the dog-fight aspect of things brought to my attention. But there's something in a fellow that insists he isn't all dog; he has at least a possibility of something better. Take these poor under-dogs sweating inside the mountain, risking their lives every hour of the day and night to provide you and me with coal to keep us warm--to 'keep the wheels of industry a-roll'--"
These were the last words Hal spoke. They were obvious enough words, yet when he looked back upon the coincidence, it seemed to him a singular one. For while he was sitting there chatting, it happened that the poor under-dogs inside the mountain were in the midst of one of those experiences which make the romance and terror of coal-mining. One of the boys who were employed underground, in violation of the child labour law, was in the act of bungling his task. He was a "spragger," whose duty it was to thrust a stick into the wheel of a loaded car to hold it; and he was a little chap, and the car was in motion when he made the attempt. It knocked him against the wall--and so there was a load of coal rolling down grade, pursued too late by half a dozen men. Gathering momentum, it whirled round a curve and flew from the track, crashing into timbers and knocking them loose. With the timbers came a shower of coal-dust, accumulated for decades in these old workings; and at the same time came an electric light wire, which, as it touched the car, produced a spark. And so it was that Hal, chatting with the marshal, suddenly felt, rather than heard, a deafening roar; he felt the air about him turn into a living thing which struck him a mighty blow, hurling him flat upon the floor. The windows of the room crashed inward upon him in a shower of glass, and the plaster of the ceiling came down on his head in another shower. When he raised himself, half stunned, he saw the marshal, also on the floor; these two conversationalists stared at each other with horrified eyes. Even as they crouched, there came a crash above their heads, and half the ceiling of the room came toward them, with a great piece of timber sticking through. All about them were other crashes, as if the end of the world had come. They struggled to their feet, and rushing to the door, flung it open, just as a jagged piece of timber shattered the side-walk in front of them. They sprang back again, "Into the cellar!" cried the marshal, leading the way to the back-stairs. But before they had started down these stairs, they realised that the crashing had ceased. "What is it?" gasped Hal, as they stood. "Mine-explosion," said the other; and after a few seconds they ran to the door again. The first thing they saw was a vast pillar of dust and smoke, rising into the sky above them. It spread before their dazed eyes, until it made night of everything about them. There was still a rain of lighter debris pattering down over the village; as they stared, and got their wits about them, remembering how things had looked before this, they realised that the shaft-house of Number One had disappeared. "Blown up, by God!" cried the marshal; and the two ran out into the street, and looking up, saw that a portion of the wrecked building had fallen through the roof of the jail above their heads. The rain of debris had now ceased, but there were clouds of dust which covered the two men black; the clouds grew worse, until they could hardly see their way at all. And with the darkness there fell silence, which, after the sound of the explosion and the crashing of debris, seemed the silence of death. For a few moments Hal stood dazed. He saw a stream of men and boys pouring from the breaker; while from every street there appeared a stream of women; women old, women young--leaving their cooking on the stove, their babies in the crib, with their older children screaming at their skirts, they gathered in swarms about the pit-mouth, which was like the steaming crater of a volcano. Cartwright, the superintendent, appeared, running toward the fan-house. Cotton joined him, and Hal followed. The fan-house was a wreck, the giant fan lying on the ground a hundred feet away, its blades smashed. Hal was too inexperienced in mine-matters to get the full significance of this; but he saw the marshal and the superintendent stare blankly at each other, and heard the former's exclamation, "That does for us!" Cartwright said not a word; but his thin lips were pressed together, and there was fear in his eyes. Back to the smoking pit-mouth the two men hurried, with Hal following. Here were a hundred, two hundred women crowded, clamouring questions all at once. They swarmed about the marshal, the superintendent, the other bosses--even about Hal, crying hysterically in Polish and Bohemian and Greek. When Hal shook his head, indicating that he did not understand them, they moaned in anguish, or shrieked aloud. Some continued to stare into the smoking pit-mouth; others covered the sight from their eyes, or sank down upon their knees, sobbing, praying with uplifted hands. Little by little Hal began to realise the full horror of a mine-disaster. It was not noise and smoke and darkness, nor frantic, wailing women; it was not anything above ground, but what was below in the smoking black pit! It was men! Men whom Hal knew, whom he had worked with and joked with, whose smiles he had shared; whose daily life he had come to know! Scores, possibly hundreds of them, they were down here under his feet--some dead, others injured, maimed. What would they do? What would those on the surface do for them? Hal tried to get to Cotton, to ask him questions; but the camp-marshal was surrounded, besieged. He was pushing the women back, exclaiming, "Go away! Go home!" What? Go home? they cried. When their men were in the mine? They crowded about him closer, imploring, shrieking. "Get out!" he kept exclaiming. "There's nothing you can do! There's nothing anybody can do yet! Go home! Go home!" He had to beat them back by force, to keep them from pushing one another into the pit-mouth. Everywhere Hal looked were women in attitudes of grief: standing rigid, staring ahead of them as if in a trance; sitting down, rocking to and fro; on their knees with faces uplifted in prayer; clutching their terrified children about their skirts. He saw an Austrian woman, a pitiful, pale young thing with a ragged grey shawl about her head, stretching out her hands and crying: "Mein Mann! Mein Mann!" Presently she covered her face, and her voice died into a wail of despair: "O, mein Mann! O, mein Mann!" She turned away, staggering about like some creature that has received a death wound. Hal's eyes followed her; her cry, repeated over and over incessantly, became the leit-motif of this symphony of horror. He had read about mine-disasters in his morning newspaper; but here a mine-disaster became a thing of human flesh and blood. The unendurable part of it was the utter impotence of himself and of all the world. This impotence became clearer to him each moment--from the exclamations of Cotton and of the men he questioned. It was monstrous, incredible--but it was so! They must send for a new fan, they must wait for it to be brought in, they must set it up and get it into operation; they must wait for hours after that while smoke and gas were cleared out of the main passages of the mine; and until this had been done, there was nothing they could do--absolutely nothing! The men inside the mine would stay. Those who had not been killed outright would make their way into the remoter chambers, and barricade themselves against the deadly "after damp." They would wait, without food or water, with air of doubtful quality--they would wait and wait, until the rescue-crew could get to them! _ |
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